Jeffrey Ellis News

Make no mistake about it: Rachel Woods is a remarkable young woman. One of the finest young actresses to come out of Nashville theater - she's performed on such diverse stages as Nashville Shakespeare Festival and Franklin's Pull-Tight Players - she's currently spending a semester abroad at Harlaxton, the University of Evansville's British campus, having new adventures every day and adding to her magical bag of theatrical tricks that will serve her well as her career progresses.

In a town where everyone from your next-door neighbor to your favorite barista - from your dental hygienist to your manicurist, your seatmate on the bus, your friendly neighborhood bartender and maybe even the guy who does your taxes - is a songwriter, you'll find that there's never a shortage of opinions on the topic of favorite songs. Ask a cross-section of Nashville theater-types what their favorite love song is from the annals of musical theater and you're going to get a barrage of answers.

Elmer Rice's play The Adding Machine premiered on Broadway in 1923, yet it speaks to the issues of the day: mechanization, corporation, immigration, sexism and bigotry--all at the expense of the individual human being. Fast foward: 2015. Nearly 100 years later, we're still there. So says Catherine Coke, director of The Adding Machine at University School of Nashville.

Now one of the most performed shows in America, Seussical is a fantastical, magical, musical extravaganza! Tony winners Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty (Lucky Stiff, My Favorite Year, Once On this Island and Ragtime) have lovingly brought to life all of our favorite Dr. Seuss characters, including Horton the Elephant, The Cat in the Hat, Gertrude McFuzz, Lazy Mayzie and a little boy with a big imagination--Jojo. The colorful characters transport us from the Jungle of Nool to the Circus Mcgurkus to the invisible world of the Whos.

Opening Friday night in Smyrna, Sabrina Fair is the perfect show to warm those cold winter nights. Featuring a wonderful cast, beautiful period costumes of the 1950s, delightful wit, and a love story that is part Cinderella, part Oscar Wilde, and part Love Actually this is a show you don't want to miss.

Today, we celebrate the birthday of Emily Whitlow, a 17-year-old (or is she 18 today?) student at Ravenwood High School in neighboring Williamson County. A native of New York, Emily moved to Tennessee with her family at the age of 15 and since then she has appeared in several school productions, including her turn as Dolly Gallagher Levi in Hello, Dolly! during her sophomore year. In addition she's appeared in Circle Players' bare and Shrek the Musical and Promises, Promises at Boiler Room Theatre.

The Kennedy Center and Nashville Children's Theatre present the world premiere musical production of Jack's Tale: A Mythic Mountain Musical Adventure February 14 and 15 in the Family Theater. Co-commissioned by the Kennedy Center and Nashville Children's Theatre, the production features a book by Scot Copeland, music by Paul Carrol Binkley, lyrics by Paul Carrol Binkley and Scot Copeland, and direction by Scot Copeland. Jack's Tale opens at Nashville Children's Theatre on Thursday, February 19, running through March 8.

Today, our focus is on one of our favorites: Stephanie Jones-Benton, one of Nashville's favorite musical theater stars, a Nashville native and a graduate of Belmont University's musical theater program. The past couple of years have been jam-packed with fun, excitement and work for Stephanie, with a lot of miles on her own personal odometer as she's traversed the world's seas and flown its skies, performing for audiences in virtually every corner of the globe.

Gina D'Arco and Taylor Novak will lead the cast of William Inge's Picnic, in a revival of the classic play helmed by Jeffrey Ellis, for Nashville's Circle Players, which this season celebrates its 65th year of bringing live theater to audiences throughout Middle Tennessee. Picnic will run March 27 through April 4, and will be performed at the theater at Hillsboro High School.

It will enable you to someday say that you, too, "knew them when"…like Brentwood's Blake Marshall, a graduate of Franklin High School now in the middle of his freshman year at Marymount Manhattan College in New York City

Eddie George, actor. After years of pursuing his dream, of plying his trade, perfecting his craft, it is now apparent that Eddie George - the once and future Tennessee Titan, pro football Hall of Fame member, Heisman Trophy winner, the very personification of professional sports in a town known worldwide as Music City USA - is one of this region's finest actors. He's paid his dues and in doing so, he silences his detractors with his most recent onstage role in Nashville Rep's stunning production of Matthew Lopez's The Whipping Man, now onstage at TPAC's Andrew Johnson Theatre through February 21.

Why do you do theater? We've been putting that question to members of the Nashville theater famiy for the past month to find out what it is that motivates creative types to pursue an illusory and challenging career, while for others the theater gives them a creative avocation that helps keep them sane. Today, in our latest installment of Nashville Theater 101, we introduce two more members of our wildly divergent, almost prototypically dysfunctional theater family: Brooke Leigh Davis and Robert Coles.

Arriving at Dickson's Gaslight Dinner Theatre just in time for Valentine's Day and all those accompanying celebrations of love and marriage is I Do! I Do!, the other Tom Jones/Harvey Schmidt musical (with The Fantasticks being the other other one - my apologies to fans of 110 in the Shade), that details 50 years in the lives of Agnes and Michael Snow, played with almost impossible charm by Jenny Norris-Light and Andy Brown.

Bradley Moore and Elizabeth Turner direct a cast of Nashville actresses in The Vagina Monologues next week. Among the actresses featured in the cast are Susan Adkins, Heather Vaughn Alexander, McKenna Driver, Lisa Fults, Savannah Hall, Jessica Hausberger, Aubrey Iwan, Karen Kirby, Amie Lara, Julia Nettles, Terry Occhiogrosso, Sarah Shepherd, Memory Strong, Mindy Tolbert and Elizabeth Turner. Music City Theatre Company will present Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues at Vibe Entertainment Complex Thursday, February 12 through Saturday, February 14, with a 7:30 p.m. curtain each night.

With over 100 U.S. cities and 30 international regions featured on our site, we have so many exciting theatre happenings around our Broadway World! Below, we've highlighted our top 10 stories from this week. Check out the roundup below!

What is it about theater kids that make them special? What's that indefinable quality that sets them apart from other teenagers? To my way of thinking, theater kids have more poise than the average high school student, an ability to talk to anyone they meet with confidence and razor-sharp focus. At least, that description certainly applies to this week's star of High School Drama, 2015 First Night Most Promising Actor Cameron Bortz of Brentwood High School.

As staged in the six-time Tony Award-winning show, the moment is at once tremendously uncomfortable and remarkably eye-opening, making the audience squirm in their seats due to the unease and the sense of voyeuristic embarrassment they feel, as if they have come upon such a scene happening in their real lives instead of seeing it play out onstage.

If the theme of Kinky Boots the Musical - opening tonight at Nashville's Tennessee Performing Arts Center - is 'just be who you wanna be,' then you can rest assured that both J. Harrison Ghee and Mikey Piscitelli are living every moment of their lives with that as their motto.

Today, in our latest installment of Nashville Theater 101, we introduce two more members of our wildly divergent, almost prototypically dysfunctional theater family: directors Bethany Langford and Tim Larson, both of whom have been represented by productions onstage of recent vintage.

The Tennessee Performing Arts Center and the Tennessee State Museum are partnering to present NEWSIES: A Tennessee Special Edition, a collaborative exhibit that explores the story behind Disney's Broadway musical Newsies and the state's rich printing history.